When it is founded in 1953, Narcotics Anonymous adopts the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions from AA with minor changes. The founding of NA sets a precedent for other fellowships to adopt the Steps and organize around problems other than alcoholism. NA’s literature shows that it has a social style of Stepwork, reminiscent of the interpretation of the Steps found in AA’s Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.
NA’s first piece of literature, the Little White Booklet, suggests that each NA member must work out his or her own interpretation of the Twelve Steps.
| Begin your own program by taking Step One…Go onto Step Two, and so forth, and you go on you will come to an understanding of the program for yourself.
Little White Booklet |
The White Booklet is not so concerned about forwarding a particular interpretation of the Steps as it is about emphasizing the importance of social interaction and accountability with other recovering addicts. An often quoted phrase from the White Booklet suggests that each individual addict derives his or her wellbeing from the NA fellowship as a whole:
| As long as the ties that bind us together are stronger than those that would tear us apart, all will be well.
Little White Booklet |
This is a clear expression of a Re-Socialization view of recovery. The statement suggests that addicts get better primarily through interacting with and depending upon other addicts.
The White Booklet has relatively low expectations for addicts who stick with the NA program; addicts are expected to struggle every day to stay clean.
| [At times] freedom can only be achieved by a grim and obstinate willfulness to hang on to abstinence, come hell or high water, until a crisis passes.
Many times in our recovery, the old bugaboos will haunt us. Life may again become meaningless, monotonous, and boring. We may tire mentally in repeating our new ideas and tire physically in our new activities, yet we know that if we fail to repeat them we will surely take up our old practices. Both Quotes from |
When NA publishes Narcotics Anonymous, commonly called the Basic Text, it offers the program’s first fleshing out of the Twelve Step program. Some important concepts in the Basic Text are borrowed from AA’s Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, including the non-spiritual interpretation of Higher Power, and a psychological style of moral inventory.
NA’s Basic Text says this about the addict’s choice of Higher Power:
| Our understanding of a Higher Power is up to us…We can call it the group, the program, or we can call it God…Many of us understand God to be simply whatever force keeps us clean.
NA Basic Text |
In its instructions for the Fourth Step, the NA Basic Text suggests a style of moral inventory that is an open-ended process of introspection and reflection upon the addict’s liabilities and assets.
| In Step Four, we begin to get in touch with ourselves. We write about our liabilities such as guilt, shame, remorse, self-pity…Assets must also be considered…such as being clean, open-mindedness…kindness and generosity…If the word moral bothers us, we may call it a positive/negative inventory.
NA Basic Text |
NA’s interpretation of the Twelve Steps is social in nature. It is open to non-spiritual understandings of Higher Power, a psychologically oriented inventory, and an emphasis upon the importance of social interaction with other recovering addicts. The social style of Stepwork in NA sets the stage for the Twelve Step Boom, when many new Twelve Step fellowships will adopt social and psychological versions of the Twelve Steps.
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This is a very good analysis of NA and how it differentiates itself from AA, as far as the Program.
I am a dual, both addict and alcoholic. I thought I was only an addict and was in NA for the first year and a half of my recovery. I had to leave NA for all the reasons stated above – I was dying of untreated alcoholism, and the useless and potentially lethal (for me) process of the psychological 4th step was making me sicker and sicker.
My solution is in the 12 steps as they were originally written down – as a Path to God so that I don’t have to die from my disease. If you are in the rooms of NA and are wondering, “is this what recovery is all about? Why do I feel worse at a year clean than I did the day I got out of detox?” then you may want to head to the nearest AA meeting and find a sponsor who is willing to take you through the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. It may save your life. It saved mine.
You don’t have drink to die of alcoholism, you don’t have to use to die of addiction. If you have the disease, there are only two treatments for it – go back to drinking and using, or go through the twelve steps in their entirety. The AA twelve steps did not beat me up further like the NA steps did. Just my experience.
If this is resonating with you, then please get moving in the right direction before this disease either a) puts you in a speeding car blacked out and loaded, or b) puts a gun in your hand.
If this is not resonating with you, then you are probably on the correct path for you.
Comment by DCW July 8, 2009 @ 3:30 pmAA is for alcoholics as stated in their literature. NA focuses on the disease, addiction, rather than the symptom. Many lives have been saved by working the NA Steps, including my own.
I am sad for the person above who decided to focus on the symptom and let their disease go untreated. NA works if you work it but you got to work it every day!
Comment by NA Boy September 23, 2009 @ 1:29 pmi agree with how this analysis describes the n.a program and fellowship. I am a addict spent a lot of time trying to recover in n.a. and almost died, that approach to recovery might work for some but i am a person who uses under any conditions and couldn’t stop by just doing social interacting and making a bunch of meetings and telling war stories and talking about my problems. i lack power, so i needed a solution. the problem was that people in n.a would give me a phone list and tell me to call if i felt like using. but the would not take the time to emphasize god and the 12 steps. so after many failures in n.a i finally met a man in a a.a meeting who was on a spiritual path and was doing his job as a recovered member of a.a and he has help me threw the book and my life is better than ever he didn’t only talk about the steps but this man actually took time to show me how they work. now i still go to n.a meetings and help hopeless addicts to a solution to the disease of addiction.im sorry if you are a real addict and your life depends on getting connected to god and you cant find it in n.a i am a addict who works out of the big book of a.a. and get show you exactly how to recover as outlined in the big book. if you are interested leave an email at this site!
Comment by teddy blackmon October 14, 2009 @ 1:26 pmif you read the forward to the first edition in the big book of alcoholics anonymous it states on pg. xiii in the first paragraph last sentence that this way of living has its advantages for all.
Comment by teddy blackmon October 17, 2009 @ 4:41 pmthats were na came from. na wouldent even have a program unless aa allowed them to adapt them.
This webpage is a disgrace to recovery. It is written from a closed minded AA perspective. I am a member of both fellowships, and enjoy both. First of all, NA does not have low expectations for the quality of recovery…that is obserd. When the white book was written, NA was experienceing growing pains. NA is grateful to AA for laying out the 12 steps, but the emphasis is on “We”…and I believe AA is moving more in that direction as well. And the part about non-spiritual forms of a higher power is bull. Whoever wrote this page has obviously not done their research…KEEP COMING BACK!!!
Comment by Noah A. October 18, 2009 @ 8:56 pmAA for Alkies NA For Addicts.. Simple.. WHEN WILL WE LEARN……..
Comment by Jim November 2, 2009 @ 10:11 am99 percent chance a true drug addict/alcoholic will not obtain long term sobriety or find happiness sober without a solution. if u do u r a better man than me. Apart from divine help real addicts are most likley hopeless. without finding god through the steps of aa myself and many others would be dead, still using, or white knuckling it suicial. AA/NA today is not much more than a social club, it has been watered down to the max. If u r a real hopless addict alcoholic, willing to go to any lengths to get better you can find someone who has recovered through the AA steps to take you through the process and you will get better, if u put an effort in.
Comment by psmi November 2, 2009 @ 8:09 pmLast night I went to a NA steps meeting. I heard, about old mates problem with his brother. Heard about a girls problems at work. Another person is having trouble losing weight, I think someone in there mentioned somethong about a step. This is what I hate about NA meetings, the lack of focus on the steps and how to work them in your life. So many, many people come to debrief the bad day they had.
I am asking myself today, how will this work for me, when I can not get anybody to actually tell me how to work the steps.
Comment by Andrew P November 24, 2009 @ 6:26 pmGet a sponsor and find a group that is in the solution and sticking to our primary purpose…dumping is a major problem in NA thought it might have been just around my area…I think its sucks and it drives me to distraction…but there are homegroups that stay in the solution which is the steps…
Comment by noah November 24, 2009 @ 9:31 pmNA has shown me a new way of life. Without my recovery, I will surely die. I walk away from each and every meeting with something beneficial to my program, ever placing principles before personalities. I give thanks to those who take the time to share with me a piece of their recovery. One addict helping another is without parallel.
Comment by Jamie January 20, 2010 @ 10:47 pmA nice bold statement about NA. Very complimentary. It does however, miss the point that NA’s version of the 12 Step is still rife with God Control brainwashing that came from the Oxford Group. The rest of the literature turns out that way as well and continuously points the recoverer to dependence on a Higher Power or God. No amount of apologist sentiment can escape us here.
Like all the rest of the 12 Step programs, NA is over 90% ineffective. It takes 1,000 addicts coming into the room for one to stay clean twenty years. I ought to know. I have twenty three years clean. NA helped in the beginning, but now hinders me. It does not support the atheist very well and a nonspiritual approach. The word spiritual is used hundreds of times in NA literature and it is a disservice to the recovering addict.
I recommend getting non process oriented therapies and outside helps to beat addiction. Which in my long experience and in helping others and viewing through the scientific method in which I was trained, is not a disease but a set of behaviors.
Comment by recoveringfromaddiction February 12, 2010 @ 11:01 amI am 19 years old and have been an active, committed member of Narcotics Anonymous since the age of 14. And as anybody with knowledge and uderstanding of our literature will show you, the attitudes, doubts, and negative opinions that have come against us are always from people who have not had any experience with the program but rather came to their own conclusions and believed they were not like “those people”. Sombody’s lack of willingness is not to our discredit, nor could it so in relation to any organization where partaking in the program and commitment to the organization is voluntary. There is no way to keep a record of success rates on an anonymous program, but there is te fact that no one who lives our program relapses. So before you bash something you dont understand take stock of how hard you tried to find hope versus how badly you want to diprove your hope. We Do Recover
Comment by Billy March 21, 2010 @ 4:56 pmI was told in the rooms of NA that I would achieve recovery ONLY if I work the steps.
I was told that I needed to find my higher power (and that my HP should be loving and forgiving, not judging and vengeful) and that my concept of a higher power will likely evolve in time. I have a very personal relationship with my HP.
I suspect the writer of this article confuses spiritual with religious. Ours is a very spiritual program NOT based on a religious GOD but a personal God.
Beyond my wildest dreams is something else I hear frequently in the rooms of NA. (a quote from the basic text) How does this translate into low expectations?
Yes staying clean can be VERY difficult at times. To deny this is absurd. Losing the desire does not happen overnight. Part or the PROMISE of NA is that we will lose the obsession to use. Until that happens staying clean can be difficult.
Our own interpretation of the steps? I do not think so… It is clearly stated that one needs a sponsor who already worked their steps in order to work your steps properly and that the wrong way to work the steps is on your own.
The reason the steps are not spelled out is because we are not supposed to work them alone. (and thus create our own interpretations)
Your quote “As long as the ties that bind us…” is from the introduction of the TRADITIONS…. the rules for the GROUPS, for NA as such.
Yes there is a social aspect to NA. Thankfully. I needed friends who did not use and I did not have any. I needed to learn how to have fun clean. I had to re-learn all sorts of social skills.
If AA works for you Good for you! Why the need to bash another fellowship?
NA was born because addicts were not made to feel welcome in AA. I know members who were around before NA who were told things like,”People like YOU do not get better.” Members who were told to leave a closed AA meetings because the were addicted to drugs also and not just alcohol. Who were shunned at open meetings. Called names and insulted.
So if AA historically did not want drug addicts in their meetings why are you bashing a different fellowship which asked permission and got it to use the steps? Where were drug addicts supposed to go?
I could never call myself an alcoholic. I hated the feeling of being drunk. I could not hold my liquor. I never thought about drinking and getting drunk. I preferred drugs!
NA helps so many addicts get clean and stay clean. You cannot knock that.
Comment by Robin April 9, 2010 @ 11:55 amThe writer of this White Book is Narcotics Anonymous founder Jimmy Kinnon. In his audio talks he is remarkably modest, disarmingly frank about his defects, and open-minded about the nature of the program. Love and tolerance, as Bill W wrote, is his code.
I love and admire my Alcoholics Anonymous brothers and sister. AA is the prototype for NA. I use, appreciate and welcome both. In keeping with the traditions of both fellowships, I identify as a straight alkie or an addict in each fellowship, because I value the unity of each fellowship, and that relies on their language being kept separate from one another. Before introducing the other fellowship’s material to a sponsee I ask for permission to use AA or NA material.
Also in keeping with tradition ten, I try to avoid controversy. It is not enough to just present information about NA and AA. It must be presented in a way which supports the unity of these fellowships as a whole.
Jimmy Kinnon talks about our creative freedom in the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text in the italicized section of ‘We Do Recover’. Despite the modest claims of the White Book, NA in fact has a remarkable spiritual program that people use to contact their own Higher Power and experience miracles in their lives.
There is absolutely no basis for controversy between AA and NA. However, I would like to suggest that AA is usually better at Hospitals and Institutions, and at Twelfth Step Visits. NAs would do well to phone AAs in their area for advice and guidance in these areas.
Likewise, NA is superb at presenting a very gentle surrender and inventory process. AAs could also benefit from asking NA for advice and guidance in steps 1 to 4.
Finally, I would like to share that my original impression of AA was the their problem was not lack of power but an obsession with it; whilst my impression of NA was that they had difficulty not with power but with experiencing feelings and grasping a coherent identity. Later impressions show it is not so simple, of course, but as generalizations this has held water fairly well.
Correspondingly, NA emphasizes two aspects which I do not hear about in AA:
NA has a “community of practice”. This is the circle around the square in the NA symbol, meaning we share what works with one another freely.
and
NA sponsor’s tend to use “dynamic living systems.” This is the square within the circle, which signifies that we address body, mind, spirit and emotions holistically. No NA program is complete, no spiritual awakening in NA is complete, unless all aspects of life are addressed. That is why there are many NA meetings where work, relationships, stress, illness, and money are discussed: these issues may be just as spiritual as step work.
Comment by 8YSTEM April 21, 2010 @ 6:33 amthink we should all stop bashing fellowships , if they help addicts/alcoholics good cos am a one of the 1s they talk about , hes no a alkie-no a addict, traddition3 says only a desire yes a desire were recovery Grows,Am now 4 years clean and sober, and wrk,n a program cos a keep come,n back. o.d.a.a.t.
Comment by wullie.glasgow June 15, 2010 @ 3:08 pm